About the Book:

A Brief History of Us

Charles Darwin knew that what made his theory of evolution so dangerous was what it said about the human race. People had, like all living things, evolved from older species– an African ape, in Darwin's own opinion. The notion was so scandalous that Darwin left it out altogether from the Origin of Species in 1859. Almost 150 years later, a vast amount of new evidence is now emerging to support Darwin's revolutionary insight–not only from fossils of our ancient relatives, but from our own DNA. The Smithsonian Guide to Human Evolution is a beautifully illustrated, elegantly brief tour of the new revolution in the study of where we came from.

Praise for Smithsonian Intimate Guide to Human Origins :

New Scientist
"Around 20 million years ago, a small and initially unpromising group of primates evolved in Africa. We now know them as the apes, and some 7 million years ago one of their kind became ancestor to both humans and chimps. As skirmishes flare up on the fringes of the Darwinian evolutionary empire, it is important that major scientific bodies endorse accurate contemporary accounts of human evolution. American science writer Carl Zimmer's well-illustrated book sets an excellent example."